Celebrating Thirty Years of East Asian Collections

Shunrinken kasho [Shunrinken school family book] /春林軒 家書, 1810, 1828. In Japanese medical manuscript notebooks, 1810-1849 and undated. Hanaoka Seishū, Takenaka Nanpō, Yamanaka, Shūsai Hideyuki.華岡青洲,竹中南峯 ,山中秀斎秀之. Manuscript.

The Japanese manuscript volumes in this collection were created between 1810 and 1849, chiefly by medical students in order to document Japanese medical training and practice during the Edo period (1600-1868). Shunrinken (春林軒) is the name of Dr. Hanaoka’s medical school. Kasho means "family book," which refers to the intellectual legacy of the "family."

The number of images used in the book involving breast cancers reflect Dr. Hanaoka’s interest in the subject. In 1804 he performed a partial mastectomy under general anesthesia, which is regarded by some as the first reliable documentation of an operation performed under general anesthesia.  Hanaoka's success in performing this operation became widely known, and patients began to arrive at his practice from all over Japan.

The right-hand image is a tumor in a breast that belonged to the 56-year-old mother of Heishichi, who lived in Okinoshima in Awa (current day Tokushima, on the island of Shikoku).  The left-hand image is a cancerous tumor in the breast of a 43-year-old Japanese woman from the province of Kii, south of current day Osaka.